The pot of tomato plants my aunt gave me is so lop-sided (all the stems are growing downwards over one side of the pot) that the rain last night caused the whole thing to capsize. It's now upright again (thankfully the soil was wet enough that it all stayed in place!) and the mass of stems is now being supported by a wire basket sitting on top of two spare food-waste bins. High-tech or what. I guess this is about normal for gardening.
Okay, I had to go and do mine too. So many games I haven't even recalled the names of in decades. They didn't have Tumble Bugs, aka Dung Beetles, in the database so I ended up with Mercenary instead which is honestly a better pick. There were so many possibles though, it's hard to pick just nine. I played a lot of Atari games until university, (and I remember I played a *lot* of Dungeon Master while I should have been revising for my GCSEs), after which I got the Free Software bug rather hard and mostly didn't play games, until finally Portal tempted me back to gaming and I created a Steam account just to get Portal on a free weekend. (To be honest, playing Portal after the last games I'd played having been Atari ST technology level was a bit of a shock to the system.) Then I got a bunch of game Humble bundles which to this day probably account for most of my Steam library, and more recently I've tended to get very few new games, I just keep playing the few sandbox games I have over and over.
@Matt Sqwrl @taco, bird/cat :verified420: Same! I'm sure I spent a lot of time wandering (and flying) around Targ, but it took me ages to (a) remember the game in the first place, and (b) find its name, before I could add it. So long ago.
My parents used to run a tiny printing business from home, and we still have quite a bit of spare SRA2 paper. I believe that's the size my dad's little offset printing press used to take. (Unless it was SRA3? Not sure.) Every so often I grab another handful and cut/trim it down to A4 so we don't have to buy more printer paper. :p
I do miss my dad's guillotine, though. That thing was a *proper* paper cutter: wind the guide stops to the correct size using the illuminated, magnified scale, put 1000 sheets in at once, align everything with the guide stops and crank down the gigantic clamp to hold the paper in place, close the safety guards, turn the key (yes, it had an actual key to prevent accidental use), push the two buttons, one on each side of the machine, simultaneously, and in a single movement it would slice through the equivalent of a phone book like it was hot butter. So nice.
Burbley and his little Chihuahua out for a walk. Whoโs actually walking who?
Drawing for Burbley the wah. When I saw him at ASC and hugged him, some moments later I noticed he was carrying with his dog on a small bag next to him.
If he looks like Koda the wah is not a coincidence: "I'm practically Koda with green eyes and blacktip tail"
Yesterday I spent the princely sum of ยฃ49 on a lawnmower. Today I put it together and mowed all the grass, front and back. Hopefully I won't have to do that too often; I now desperately need a shower. At least the grass is now short enough that hopefully the tall weeds and grass won't make it difficult to rake up the leaves and acorns the oak trees are likely to completely cover the garden with over the next month or two.
@tripplehelix I once removed the chip&pin from a bank card (non NFC) using a laser, and laser cut a recess in a printed plastic card so I could glue it in to the new card.
Result was a 100% custom printed card with a working bank chip in it.
Was amusing the one time I used it.
Oddly, these days, I could so easily over UV print a bank card with anything and it work for chip/pin and NFC.
@RevK :verified_r: @๐ง๐ป Thomas ๐ง๐ป I'm sure I read about someone many years ago who had managed to dissolve the plastic of an Oyster card and leave just the chip and antenna, which they then installed in a stick. They could then, in a full set of wizard robes and pointy hat, tap the end of their staff on the reader to open the gates to the underground.
Kind of the same in my house - but it's the US so it's Fast Orange pumice cleaner and vanilla scented hand soap.
It was a good way to teach my daughter that "for men" and "for women" products matter a heck of a lot less than "for moisturizing" and "for de-greasing."
Sketchbook #19 This particular one is the one that took me the longest to complete, I should take out my sketchbooks more often with me everywhere like before, instead of my tablet, that would mean more drawings for fun and for myself.
The #AfD move to ban โstumbling stonesโ that commemorate not just Jewish lives taken by the Nazis, but that show where they last lived.
Being a Brit Iโd not heard of them until now, but I love the psychogeographical nature of their purpose. A chance encounter with them, a means of viewing a street scene through a Time Machine and to read them you must pause and bow your head. They are small but convey so much about the extent of the Holocaust. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqm2mm4y5dkko
Fascinating how politicians throughout Europe are foaming at the mouth that pro-Palestine movements are 'antisemitic'โฆ while actual Nazis are doing Holocaust denial.
How these people don't implode from cognitive dissonance is beyond me.
Takes a certain level of avowed antisemitism to try and ban memorials of genocide. We do have one stolperstein here in the UK but we could do with more.
I always stop and narrate them, like an open book. They are asking to be read. On the front of one house in Berlin the current residents even posted a full timeline including the last letters from the family that was remigrated, as an open memorial.
I've seen a few of these in various parts of the world- astonishingly you will find quite a lot around the part of Amsterdam where Anne Frank's house was, but they're far from scarce elsewhere- their sheer ubiquity does a lot to hit home just how big the Holocaust was, even if you're not stopping and reading the text on every single one.
Content warning: my specific opinions on the a of i
read until the end, omg
part of my opinions is... that neural networks have actual good use cases
not on generating text or media, or as "agents", but specifically as tools for doing conceptually simple but computationally complex (or that by hand would take a lot of repetitive work) transformations on unstructured data, and specifically on areas where complete accuracy is inconsequential
for example: - image background removal (not image creation or 'enhancement') - "turn this text of this person asking me to do things into a structured todo list" (not generate new info, just 'translate' the data into another format) - "suggest names for these image files based on the contents" (at worst it will give the file a wrong title, not erase a db)
(which actually is the type of tasks where you don't need "large" models; stuff that can realistically be made without scraping terabytes of people's data, and ran without lots of power hungry hardware)
as the moment you want the computer to "reason" or create or act for you, you've lost the plot, you're being mentally lazy and undermining human creativity and integrity, it is software, not someone
but, big but
as the current state of things, the infrastructure and space around it is so vile that the ethical and sane position is to not use it nor support it, and very much want to restrict it
you don't need to remind me of the scraping, and computing costs, and energy use, and water use, and datacenters, and the excuse as labour replacement
nor of the people using it for undermining artists, and creating slop, and poisoning or destroying information, and infringement, and using for fash shit
so very much the bad points largely outweigh the good cases; being able to say "turn this quick note I wrote into a calendar event" is neat, it is very much not worth supporting google or whatever other evil corporation or whatever unethical 'researcher' ("open" models still are made with the lots of scraped data and trained on the wasteful datacenters)
so the right stance is to be against it, at least for the foreseeable future
maybe in the years after the bubble bursts, and the hype/craze ends, and this stuff is correctly regulated both in laws and on individual spaces, and there are blockers for making it a lot harder to use it for horrible stuff, then we can start discussing its merits and how to use it as serious ethical adults
...also maybe the people who are concerned can then propose ways to make it not horrible or support good ones, instead of just being like a whole area of computing is pure evil in itself and must be destroyed forever
google or zuck were already doing evil before, this is just their newest plot, they would be using other things to do evil anyway
Content warning: my specific opinions on the a of i, and on advocating for bans
and from that, I'd say that there is a better way approach projects/users and advocating for restrictions, than just going "by using it you're pledging allegiance to the antichrist and personally endorsing scam altman; ban it now!"
maybe (very much could be better phrased, more of an example I came up in 5 minutes, you get the idea):
this tool can have certain use cases such as any other tech, but at the current moment most people, including ones interested in the tech, are concerned about both the improper use of it in many ways and the low quality of its output, and on the ethical/economical/ecological/social problems of the current way the tools are made and ran, and certainly would be better to practice harm reduction or eliminating the use of tools that cause harm, as its not unreasonable for a group to agree on restricting things that may go against its values even if they may have use (say, entities restricting the use of non recyclable materials or products from unethical manufacturers or minimising the reliance on vehicles)
although as currently the space that surrounds it is moving so fast without much oversight in those aspects and dominated by the voices/products of those who mainly seek to exploit and profit above all, and as it is really hard extra work to police which tools contributors might use to make sure they are using the non/least harmful ones in the best way, it is a very reasonable position to have heavy restrictions and preferably bans on the use of such tools at least until a point in time it can be more confidently be used without all the current woes and discussion controlled by few loud corporate voices (prominent ethically sourced local models, more consistent use guidelines and verifiable quality, etc)
---
yes it is more, 'soft spoken' and does give a bit of ground, that's the point, you don't convince someone (that can still be convinced) to do good by being "if you don't do this now you're evil and personally destroying the world!!"
Lot of random theories why the AI companies would be actively telling everyone that their AI is going rogue, and AI is going to kill everyone...
Here's another one, and it's mine, so it's right.
It's actually really simple. They WANT regulation on AI. And here's why: they are already established. They will get to help write the laws, especially because they are SO concerned. And this will lock out everyone else from legally using it for themselves. You will be FORCED to use their "licensed" datacenters for "your" safety.
It's ALWAYS for your safety. This should be obvious.
They KNOW the average home PC can run most of this stuff. Maybe not quite as fast - maybe your picture of a gerbil defeating Luke Skywalker in a light saber duel will take 15 seconds to generate. Maybe even 45. But you can do it, at home, no datacenter, no water, and the same electricity as playing <insert modern 3d shooter here>. You can talk to your own PC in private right now.
They have NOTHING you can't do at home. And if you figure that out, their entire market goes 'poof'.
They LOVE the anti-AI push, cause it helps prevent people from figuring that out themselves. Yes! Yes! FIGHT AMONGST YOURSELVES!!
It's all so fucking stupid that we can't work on fixing the REAL problems.
I think there will always be a level of quality between what a person running a model at home can get versus the quality they get from a cutting edge model from a big tech vendor.
But I'm hoping - scratch that, I'll even say I'm reasonably confident - that we can make providing that additional level of quality unprofitable. That should pop the AI bubble and keep it from reinflating.
Furtive bus party was amazing. Perfect weather again, 3hrs of playing random party, disco, club tunes for a bus full of furries and randos on the streets of Seattle.
Still the most challenging DJ gig by far! Not getting taken out by a tree or street light is 90% of the work lol
Also, Reddit calling it the 'airport shuttle' and the 'Alaska Airlines Pilot' bus ๐๐พโ๏ธ lol
Youtube trying to recommend me as many videos as it can now, made by furries, explaining the fandom, starting off with like "I've been a furry for years now, my first con was in 2022!" Yeah, you're an old skool furry of course you are. *headpat* Keep at it, little guy. :)
There he goes! Look at this fox looking way too cool during his skate practice, even if his shades can barely keep up with him.
(This was before collecting a few too many bruises, gotta learn somehow!)
A commission for Kit Knightwood, who also happens to be celebrating his birthday today. Happy birthday!
Digital. Procreate
I shared a short time-lapse process video on the first comment of this submission on my Telegram channel: https://t.me/panda_paco
And I shared the full video, the full resolution version, plus many more drawings I haven't shared yet on my galleries, as exclusive for Patreon and Ko-Fi monthly supporters. They all help me to keep doing what I love and keep sharing paintings, and hopefully make many projects I have in mind a reality, you can support me at:
Official Art Channel ๐ฒ๐ฝ Clean cute artist. Full-Time Panda. Here to paint some smiles. https://linktr.ee/panda_paco Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pandapaco Ko-Fi Shop: https://ko-fi.com/panda_paco/shop Stickers channel: @pacostickers
I'm just relistening to some tracks from the game Pathogenic that I heard on the 8 bit drummer's stream tonight, and looked the game up. It's a twin stick shooter, apparently. This reminds me, I think I've tried one or two twin-stick shooters before and never got on with them. They're the ones where one joystick moves you around while the other aims shots. As far as I remember (and I don't really play games very much, other than the very few I play a lot of, like Minecraft) I just couldn't get the hang of moving the two sticks separately, one for movement and one for aim. I'd have to stop moving to aim, and then when I started moving again I couldn't change aim until I stopped again. Is that usual? I guess a lot of gamers have just learned the coordination needed for that.
This is a music box my late grandfather spent a lot of time working on. My dad worked on it most recently and it seems to play quite well, although I suspect...
Somehow radically wrong, despite the fact that Oklahoma is America's Australia...
some dude up in Claremore owns one of the actual Ford Explorers used in the movie and keeps it fresh despite it being his daily. And there's a *lot* of copycats in town because it seems like if you got a Ford Explorer that's rusting out and you gotta do metalwork to keep it going anyway, might as well repaint it JP style!
@Ardonis It wasn't too bad! Visibility was awful, and I didn't have any pads (which I remembered the moment I blocked a dump-in with my shins... ow), but in general it was super fun. No peripheral vision, so puckhandling was only by feel.
This is what fursuiting should be about. Doing normal everyday stuff as the aminal you actually are. So for me, absolutely not ice skating (I can barely stand up on skates) but for you, ๐! Also, I remember that look of yours from way way back; was always a favourite.
@Xoa Gray Thank you. I still love him. No idea why those photos didn't federate properly though, but clicking them still brings up the full size versions okay, and you can always click through to the original post on my instance. ๐คท
Actually, clicking on them individually made them show up on my server. For some reason they just show as black in the post, and if I just click on the first one and used my arrow keys to pan through them.
I'm not sure what the difference is, but it did make a difference.
Oh yeah, how about Rusty! He's very awkward to take anywhere so there aren't many photos of him at all. Here's one relatively recent one though. He's the lighter-coloured one with the cords and the braces.
The Organ of Rians: Reinvented by an engineer, alone, in fifteen yearsPascal Leray, an engineer, spent fifteen years building the pipe organ of Rians church,...
